Quote:
Posted By BrianB on 08/15/2013 3:09 PM
Joyce
Sorry you think my point was contentious or specious (i can't remember which you called it, I get called both a LOT). However, I tossed it out there as food for thought. Since you tossed back, I'll take that as you want to play the game.
So, let's get to my main point:
What the heck does it matter what I do in my own garage, if it bothers no one? I can rebuild motors all day long, write poetry, do accounting, shave small mammals, or film porn for websites. If there is NO exterior evidence of my business, why is bookkeeping allowable, but motor rebuilding not?
One argument tossed out there is that motor rebuilding "is different". You imply it is noisy, and involves fumes. I contend that I can do it with low VOC solvents, or no solvents, and rebuilding electrical motors requires no more noise than a standard vacuum, perhaps less. Or, did you mean car motors? We never specified what kind of motor, did we? I can rebuild car motors too, quietly and without any solvents other than soap and water. My neighbor currently rebuilds race car engines, and his hobby is quieter than the idiot across the street driving his Harley Davidson back and forth. I can hear the Harley neighbor coming two blocks away, i can barely hear the other one when he tests his finished product, it sounds just like a normal car.
However, if we are talking car motors, and oil/grease, wafting fumes that make people sick, and lots of noise from revving engines, then I agree with you... not because it's a business in the home, but because it ruins the enjoyment of others. However, that said, if you run an accounting business, and you use 50 gallons of methanol a week to run your mimeograph machine, and that thing clatters and clunks for 3 hours a day, making advertisement copies, and shakes my walls with the noise, and the smell of methanol makes me sick/drunk, is it your contention that because it's "bookkeeping" and not motor rebuilding, we can overlook that?
My point, once again, is we should describe accurately the behaviors and situations that we want to control, and not generalize things into broad categories, because broad categories always cause problems when you look into the details.
To Brian's point, Joyce, you say "I have no problem with ANY home based business" (my emphasis), yet you arbitrarily say "as long as they aren't rebuilding engines", suggesting that your definition of "any" is arbitrary and limited. You're creating the conflict of opinions yourself.
To the point of the thread, if someone runs a business from their home, ANY business at all, that is not detectable externally and does not change anything about the neighborhood from noise to amount of traffic, then it's impossible to argue how one of those businesses is permitted over any other one.
Now, businesses that affect the association are a different matter. Someone running a daycare, running a hair salon in their basement, someone parking heavy equipment in their driveway, etc... are situations where the association as a whole is affected. Some could be just visual, others could increase traffic, others could be noise related. It's up to the board to establish an OFFICIAL interpretation of the restriction. Making an official interpretation is a board action that should be determined at a meeting of the BoD and logged into official meeting minutes. That should be done to ensure that decisions are not arbitrary.
i.e."Relative to the restriction regarding home based businesses, Article 4, Section 27, titled "Home based Businesses", the board interprets this restriction to prohibit business that look bad, smell bad, or sound bad, but not those that are transparent to the association. Examples of permitted businesses are: ____________ Examples of prohibited businesses are: ___________ The provided lists are intended to be for the purpose of examples only and are not intended to be exhaustive lists."
Voted on by the board, entered into the minutes, distributed to the entire association, done (running by the attorney might be a good idea if the decision is expected to be contentious). The board takes the executive action of interpreting the bylaw, and that action stands until it's overruled by a subsequent vote of the board (or by a vote of the owners in a method prescribed by the documents).